


Christmas Nights

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>To an outside observer, the revelation of their little Christmas nights might seem an unusual one. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/gifts).



To an outside observer, the revelation of their little Christmas nights might seem an unusual one. Generally people didn’t expect trained assassins or anonymous spooks to acknowledge something as human as the season of goodwill. However, that’s precisely how it’s evolved: as a point to keep them human.

Perhaps Natasha’s love of snowy nights seems only natural - except, being natural, it’s silly to think that she either loves or hates snow. That would be like having strong emotions about the fact that the sky is blue. Snow is a simple fact of a Russian existence, like rain in Britain or sun in the Sahara. No, what Natasha enjoys about a white Christmas - or, for her, any Christmas that deserves the designation - is to curl up inside in the warm in the satisfaction that outside the wind is howling. Warmth and security remain rare enough to be treats, and those who think that she rejects human contact couldn’t be wrong. It’s trust that takes time to come to her; once there, though, she proves surprisingly physical, punches and kicks certainly, but brushed hands and curled up bodies also. She just rarely has the chance to let her guard down like this: just the three of them.

The purple paper hat upon her head is attributable to Clint - he’d tried the antlers, and failed - and his own enjoyment of every tacky tradition you can trace across America. In the circus, trees could be hard to come by, but shameless tat was their bread and butter. Clint associates Christmas with painful light displays and clashing colours and awful holiday clothing and Santa riding Harleys - or surfing, if they were further south. All he asks from the two of them is for every fraying piece of tinsel and appalling headgear they can find. (He doesn’t ask for companionship, because he thinks the moment he does so, they’ll melt away like the snow on his skin.)

The two of them curl up around each other like cats, Natasha murmuring tales of Baboushka or Clint singing joyfully off-key along to the radio. It’s warm and it’s home; it’s them. But it’s not right until Phil stumbles through the door, muttering about paperwork and deadlines and superpowered terrorists, trailing snow and a threadbare scarf that has the look of something knitted on a particularly boring mission some years ago. 

Natasha shushes him and Clint flicks the TV on, and Phil finds himself sat in the middle, watching the same films as when he was a kid, but through different eyes now - theirs.

For Phil, as embarrassing as it is to say it aloud - hence why he doesn’t - he’s here because Christmas is about being with the ones you love, and really, where else would he be?


End file.
